Bermuda-based insurance giant ACE Ltd. still isn't saying when it will be releasing the findings of an internal investigation into whether there was "any illegal or grossly improper behaviour at ACE" ? a report that had been promised in February.

The company has been conducting its internal investigation since November, after New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer launched a stinging civil lawsuit against leading broker Marsh & McLennan, implicating several insurers ? including ACE ? in illegal bid rigging allegations.

Later, Mr. Spitzer and regulators at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) widened their probe to questions on 'non-traditional' reinsurance transactions, including finite risk transactions that may not have genuinely transferred risk.

ACE has said it has received 43 subpoenas, letters of enquiry and civil investigative demands but has yet to release any findings from its internal review.

An ACE spokesman yesterday told he could give no update on when the internal investigation would be concluded or made public.

There have been no charges brought against ACE, but two staff from its US casualty risk arm were fired after that unit was implicated in the sham bid rigging charges against Marsh.

Marsh later settled the suit by setting up an $850 million fund for victims of the bid rigging, but only after it fired its CEO, Jeffrey Greenberg.

Mr. Greenberg is the older brother of ACE CEO Evan Greenberg. The Spitzer and SEC probes also took a toll at AIG with, AIG insurance legend Maurice (Hank) Greenberg ? the father of Jeffrey and Evan ? being forced out this week from the commercial insurance giant he'd run like a 'tight ship' for 37 years - ending what many had seen as an insurance dynasty with the three Greenbergs between them having controlled more than $700 billion in assets.

In January, ACE's Mr. Greenberg said its internal investigation had involved hundreds of interviews being conducted and thousands of documents being reviewed ? and the process should be wrapped up by the end of February.

Former US Attorney Mary Jo White ? who is ACE's outside counsel with Debevoise & Plimpton ? is leading the internal investigation, which was described in February by Mr. Greenberg as a review of whether there was "any illegal or grossly improper behaviour at ACE".

He added that the review was "at arms length; a truly independent review".

"To date, nothing ? and we are sure glad to report it ? nothing has been discovered which smells like anything we have found in that excess unit. So far it is all confined to that and that is how we expect it to conclude."

Within weeks of Mr. Spitzer's October 18 suit against Marsh, ACE employee Patricia Abrams pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge in the matter. She and her boss, ACE casualty risk president Geoffrey Gregory, were later fired by ACE.

Three others ACE employees were also suspended by the company in the wake of the far-reaching industry probe.

Mr. Gregory's boss, ACE USA head Susan Rivera also resigned suddenly in early February, prompting speculation that her departure too was part of fallout from the Spitzer investigation.

In late January, ACE also announced Peter Mear, its legal counsel for nine years, was to be replaced by Robert Cusumano, who has been an outside counsel for the company from Debevoise & Plimpton ? the firm conducting the internal investigation.

ACE is only one of numerous Bermuda-based re/insurers to have been subpoenaed in the Spitzer and SEC investigations. Others include XL Capital, AXIS Capital, RenaissanceRe, Arch Capital and Alea Group.

Bermuda has also been shaken this week by AIG's admission that companies it had reinsurance contracts were actually controlled by it ? not independent as it had previously claimed. The company fired its long-time legal counsel Michael Murphy on Sunday.